Pittsburgh Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin during a preseason game against the Carolina Panthers on Aug. 21, 2025. — Ed Thompson / Steelers Now
CHARLOTTE — In the Pittsburgh Steelers’ first preseason game against the Jacksonville Jaguars, the Steelers were not especially highly penalized, being cited six times and yielding 60 yards as a result.
One of those penalties was an illegal hands to the face penalty against second-year tackle Troy Fautanu.
In the team’s joint practice with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, which was attended by NFL officials, Fautanu was also flagged for hands to the face.
The next day on the offensive line meeting board, head coach Mike Tomlin wrote the following phrase: “two is a pattern.”
If two is a pattern that requires the attention of the head football coach to address, what in the world does that make 13?
That’s how many times Tomlin’s team was flagged for violations in Thursday night’s preseason finale against the Carolina Panthers.
Pittsburgh Steelers running back Kenneth Gainwell runs past a flag on Aug. 21, 2025. — Ed Thompson / Steelers Now
“It’s good to get a win,” Tomlin said after the 19-10 victory. “There was some good, but there was a lot of things you don’t like, to be quite honest with you. I thought we were highly penalized. We turned the ball over there early.”
Even worse, that all came after a second preseason game that Tomlin said was lost due to “self-inflicted wounds.”
But not all penalties are created equally. When Jalen Ramsey stuffed Carolina rookie running back Travis Etienne in the backfield, dragged him five yards further back, and then shoved him to the ground after the whistle, Tomlin can live with his defense coming out with a violent and disruptive approach that toes and occasionally crosses the line of legality.
“I’d much rather say whoa than sic ‘em, I’ll leave it at that,” Tomlin said.
On the other side of the ball, Fautanu — who has learned his lesson about being highly penalized and did not draw a flag — said there’s a difference between flags that happen when you’re trying to make a play like the five holding penalties the Steelers accumulated, and pre-snap penalties that will absolutely have Tomlin breathing fire at meetings this week.
“We’d rather have those than the stupid false start penalties — stuff you can control,” Fautanu said. “Obviously, in the game, things are moving fast. We’re just gonna go watch the tape, evaluate, and go from there.”
Fautanu said Tomlin addressed the rash of penalties once with the team already, and that he’ll likely do so again at film review, but he said the fuming head coach won’t have to rant and rave to get his point across. The players themselves are more than aware that Thursday night’s results were unacceptable.
“Obviously, no one wants to go out there and commit penalties,” Fautanu said.
First Look at First-Team D
Ramsey and the rest of the first-team defense only played one series against Carolina. Tomlin had announced that he only ruled out four participates for Thursday’s game, and said the rest of the starters would play, as long as Carolina put out a representative lineup.
The Panthers didn’t play ball, resting almost all of their starters, but Tomlin pushed forward with playing his starting defense, anyway.
“Got a little bit,” Tomlin said. “They wanted some more. Really it was just about the process, taking them through the pregame warmups, getting them in the huddle a little bit, and getting them exposed to how we feel that, letting them feel that from an in-helmet perspective. Less about the play, especially for the more experienced ones.”
While it may have gotten Tomlin some comfort level with his defense’s communication, it got the rest of us a sneak peak at Jalen Ramsey in a Steelers uniform. And despite the penalty — or maybe including it — it looked like a great fit.
Pittsburgh Steelers cornerback Jalen Ramsey in a preseason game against the Carolina Panthers on Aug. 21, 2025. — Ed Thompson / Steelers Now
Ramsey lined up just about everywhere in the defense. On the first play of the game, he was a free safety, playing center field in a Cover 3 look. On the second play, he was lined up as a slot cornerback, two feet to the left of outside linebacker Jack Sawyer.
He seemed to be around the ball on nearly every one his nine snaps, he was talking trash, hitting hard and just generally being a menace the entire time he was out there. The Steelers seem to have found another defensive impact player.
Next Man Up?
Pittsburgh Steelers defensive tackle Yahya Black in a preseason game against the Carolina Panthers on Aug. 21, 2025. — Ed Thompson / Steelers Now
In a game where Derrick Harmon was injured, and Yahya Black had two sacks, it’s natural to think that the Steelers’ fifth-round draft pick might be the next man up for the team’s first-round draft pick.
But don’t count out some of the other options. Daniel Ekuale has a lot of NFL starting experience, and Isaiahh Loudermilk has been in the starting lineup for most of the summer with Cam Heyward not practicing. That doesn’t mean that Black — who was phenomenal on Thursday — can’t get there. But I wouldn’t figure that he’s Plan A.
It definitely makes Logan Lee’s case for the 53-man roster a near-lock. Lee, who was probably a bubble case entering the preseason, did a nice job of filling in at long snapper last week, and he played OK against the Panthers, but with Harmon unlikely to be healthy for the season opener, the Steelers will need at least seven defensive linemen around, and there’s no question Lee is one of their seven best.
Too Good for the Practice Squad?
Pittsburgh Steelers kicker Ben Sauls during a preseason game against the Carolina Panthers on Aug. 21, 2025. — Ed Thompson / Steelers Now
The Steelers didn’t have a ton of jobs up for grabs entering the final week of the preseason, and I’m not sure many got resolved. Scotty Miller seems to be firmly ahead of Robert Woods. Carson Bruener and Mark Robinson both did well at linebacker. Neither Beanie Bishop nor Cory Trice played at cornerback. Cam Johnston had a better night that Corliss Waitman.
But several Steelers players that appear to be on the wrong side of the roster bubble had solid performances against the Panthers. DeMarvin Leal (three tackles), Trey Sermon (39 rushing yards), Skylar Thompson (152 passing yards, touchdown) and Ben Sauls (four field goals) are all fighting for their Steelers roster lives, but man, do they look good enough to play in the NFL.
It wouldn’t surprise me if more than one of those guys ends up on someone else’s 53.
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